Pejibaye

Our “secret menu” overdrive finally goes production! The Pejibaye is a semi-transparent, darlington overdrive that’s designed to sling mud in the most subtle of ways – letting your guitar’s tone shine through while simultaneously getting down and nasty at the drop of a dime, but still able to clean up nice for the ride home. Stylistically, it sits somewhere between a dirty boost and a nicely-saturated overdrive, providing tone coloration without completely tweaking your tone – not to say that it doesn’t get dirty.

On the right, single volume knob controls it all – the rest is up to your playing, pickups and volume settings from your guitar. On the left, a three way toggle gives you a couple clipping options, ranging from nearly nothing, to soft LED-based symmetry, to some subtle, yet hard silicon-rectifier based grit. At some points, there’s almost a tube-like feel to the pedal, perfect for conjuring cooked warmth out of solid states and some wholesome drive from their tube-derived cousins.

Also, this guy can get l-o-u-d – as in a boost of about 30 db. Always a good thing for searing solos, anthemic fanfares and retro explorations of that mid-90’s “whisper and then wall” sound we all seemed to like for some reason. For those more into subtlety, think of this more as your perfect companion for mangrove blues, cloud forest boogie and deep swamp moss-hops.

By the by, a Pejibaye is a type of palm fruit common to Costa Rican cuisine, but often considered little more than livestock feed elsewhere. The flavor is subtle, yet unique – definitely an acquired taste and seldom presented as typical fare to outsiders. If you can find it, give it a taste – you’ll probably like it. I originally designed this circuit while living in Costa Rica in response to requests for pedals that would compliment the local music scene that weren’t as extreme as my production-run fuzzes – and over time, hey, the sound kind of grew on me, similar to the fruit of it’s namesake.

Ordering

Price is $89, not including shipping and handling. All orders ship from Ithaca, NY via Priority Mail. Please contact us prior to ordering for international orders or to make other shipping arrangements. At the moment, we build in small batches and handle all online ordering through Reverb. If you’re interested in picking up one of these boxes, we invite you to visit our shops – if it’s there, it’s available. If not, either give us a few days or drop us a line.

Media

For sounds, etc., check this out – I’m not the best guitarist on the planet – more of a bassist who can hide behind a wall of sound in an attempt for a passable tone, but hopefully you get the drift. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll do my best to guide the way for you.

Additional Information

Power is 9v center tip negative and compatible with most guitar pedal power supplies.

Due to the environmental impact of 9v batteries, there is no battery snap inside the pedal.

For all that are curious, the status LED is white.

Artwork is courtesy of the wonderfully talented Paulina Velazquez-Solis

Feedback and questions are encouraged. If anything comes up, whether it be a simple question or a request for distribution, please feel free to drop us a line.

As always, my personal guarantee is that if I can fix it, I will. Not to say that you shouldn’t also do your best to take care of this box as well.